I am 38 years old, back in school, working a full-time office job, doing delivery gigs on the side, trying to take better care of myself, and somehow also building a business from the ground up.

Which means, naturally, my laundry has become an independent nation.

Bad Weather Baddies Co. is still tiny. We are in the very beginning stages. We have not “made it” yet. We are still learning, testing, fixing things, changing things, figuring out what people actually like, and trying not to accidentally break the website while doing it.

And yet, working on this business makes me ridiculously happy.

A dream I did not realize I was still carrying

I think one of the strangest parts of getting older is realizing that some dreams do not disappear. They just get buried under bills, jobs, responsibilities, other people’s needs, and all the ordinary things that take up a life.

I have spent a lot of years taking care of people, solving problems, keeping things moving, and putting myself somewhere lower on the list. Building this business has brought back a part of me I did not realize I missed so much: the part that gets excited about making something, learning something new, and wondering, “What if this actually works?”

Even before the business is profitable enough to change my life, it has already changed something in me.

The best part is when someone says, “Can you make one for me?”

One of my favorite things has been friends looking at something I made and immediately saying, “Okay, but can you make one for nurses?” or “Can you make one for drivers?” or “You need one for this job.”

I cannot explain how much that thrills me.

There is something so satisfying about making a design and realizing that another person sees themselves in it. It gives me more ideas, and then those ideas create more ideas, and suddenly I have approximately 900 things I want to make and only one set of hands.

That is probably a problem for Future Me.

I am learning in public

I am still learning ecommerce, design, marketing, social media, products, websites, automation, and all the tiny pieces that somehow combine into “running a business.” Some days I feel like I know exactly what I am doing. Other days I discover a button I apparently should have clicked three weeks ago.

But I like that too.

Being a beginner can be uncomfortable, but it is also exciting. Almost every week I can look back and see something I understand now that I did not understand before.

And apparently I decided now was also a good time to go back to school

At 38, I am back in college too.

This sounded very inspiring when I signed up. It sounds slightly less inspiring when there is homework due and I have spent two hours designing a shirt instead.

I am trying to get better about remembering that school matters, rest matters, my health matters, and my future matters too. I am trying, for once, to put myself somewhere near the top of my own priority list instead of permanently assigning myself the role of emergency support staff for everyone else.

Trying to take care of myself while building something

I recently started a GLP-1 journey, and I have also been doing delivery work around my regular job. Oddly enough, the delivery work has made movement feel less like a chore. Running through stores, shopping orders, loading bags, and walking back and forth starts to feel like I am somehow getting paid to exercise.

I am aware this is not a scientific fitness program. Please allow me this.

I am still figuring out how to balance all of it: work, school, business, health, relationships, responsibilities, errands, and the laundry pile that continues to gain political influence.

Someday, I want this to be my full-time life

The dream is not just to sell shirts or make cute things.

The dream is to build something that lets me spend my time creating, experimenting, learning, and making things people are genuinely excited to wear or give to someone they love.

I want the day to come when I can put my full attention into my business and say, “This is what I do.”

We are nowhere near that point yet.

But that is okay.

Right now, I am building it in the margins of my life. A product here. A post there. A new skill after work. An idea scribbled down when I should probably be doing homework.

And for the first time in a long time, those little pieces feel like they are adding up to something that belongs to me.

If you are building something later than you thought you would, starting over, going back to school, changing your health, or chasing a dream that has been sitting quietly in the background for years, I hope you give yourself permission to be excited before you have proof that it is going to work.

Sometimes the beginning is allowed to be meaningful all by itself.